The Curé of Ars on lust

The article that follows has been excerpted from the book The Little Catechism of the Curé of Ars, available from Tan Books.

[Read more about this great saint, The Curé of Ars, otherwise known as St. John Vianney.]


CHAPTER 8

On Lust

Lust is the love of the pleasures that are contrary to purity.


No sins, my children, ruin and destroy a soul so quickly as this shameful sin; it snatches us out of the hands of the good God and hurls us like a stone into an abyss of mire and corruption. Once plunged in this mire, we cannot get out, we make a deeper hole in it every day, we sink lower and lower. Then we lose the faith, we laugh at the truths of religion, we no longer see Heaven, we do not fear Hell. O my children! how much are they to be pitied who give way to this passion! How wretched they are! Their soul, which was so beautiful, which attracted the eyes of the good God, over which He leant as one leans over a perfumed rose, has become like a rotten carcass, of which the pestilential odor rises even to His throne. . . .

See, my children! Jesus Christ endured patiently, among His Apostles, men who were proud, ambitious, greedy--even one who betrayed Him; but He could not bear the least stain of impurity in any of them; it is of all vices that which He has most in abhorrence: "My Spirit does not dwell in you," the Lord says, "if you are nothing but flesh and corruption." God gives up the impure to all the wicked inclinations of his heart. He lets him wallow, like the vile swine, in the mire, and does not even let him smell its offensive exhalations. . . .The immodest man is odious to everyone, and is not aware of it. God has set the mark of ignominy on his forehead, and he is not ashamed; he is full of arrogance and pride. The eternal truths, death, judgment, Paradise, Hell--nothing terrifies him, nothing can move him.

So, my children, of all sins, that of impurity is the most difficult to eradicate. Other sins forge for us chains of iron, but this one makes them of bull's hide, which can be neither broken nor rent; it is fire, a furnace, which consumes even to the most advanced old age. See those two infamous old men who attempted the purity of the chaste Susanna; they had kept the fire of their youth even till they were decrepit. When the body is worn out with debauchery, when they can no longer satisfy their passions, they supply the place of it, oh, shame! by infamous desires and memories.

With one foot in the grave, they still speak the language of passion, till their last breath; they die as they have lived, impenitent; for what penance can be done by the impure, what sacrifice can be imposed on himself at his death, who during his life has always given way to his passions? Can one at the last moment expect a good confession, a good Communion, from him who has concealed one of these shameful sins, perhaps, from his earliest youth--who has heaped sacrilege on sacrilege? Will the tongue, which has been silent up to this day, be unloosed at the last moment? No, no, my children; God has abandoned him; many sheets of lead already weigh upon him; he will add another, and it will be the last. . . .

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Read more by St. John Vianney, Curé of Ars, . . .
scroll down to "Writings" after clicking here.

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Penance #2

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle A

Reading I
Hos 6:3-6

In their affliction, people will say:
"Let us know, let us strive to know the LORD;
as certain as the dawn is his coming,
and his judgment shines forth like the light of day!
He will come to us like the rain,
like spring rain that waters the earth."

What can I do with you, Ephraim?
What can I do with you, Judah?
Your piety is like a morning cloud,
like the dew that early passes away.
For this reason I smote them through the prophets,
I slew them by the words of my mouth;
for it is love that I desire, not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than holocausts.

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 50:1, 8, 12-13, 14-15

R. (23b) To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

God the LORD has spoken and summoned the earth,
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
"Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you,
for your holocausts are before me always."

R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

"If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for mine are the world and its fullness.
Do I eat the flesh of strong bulls,
or is the blood of goats my drink?"

R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

"Offer to God praise as your sacrifice
and fulfill your vows to the Most High;
then call upon me in time of distress;
I will rescue you, and you shall glorify me."

R. To the upright I will show the saving power of God.

Reading II
Rom 4:18-25

Brothers and sisters:
Abraham believed, hoping against hope,
that he would become "the father of many nations,"
according to what was said, "Thus shall your descendants be."
He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body
as already dead--for he was almost a hundred years old--
and the dead womb of Sarah.
He did not doubt God's promise in unbelief;
rather, he was strengthened by faith and gave glory to God
and was fully convinced that what he had promised
he was also able to do.
That is why it was credited to him as righteousness.
But it was not for him alone that it was written
that it was credited to him;
it was also for us, to whom it will be credited,
who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead,
who was handed over for our transgressions
and was raised for our justification.


Gospel
Mt 9:9-13

As Jesus passed on from there,
he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, "Follow me."
And he got up and followed him.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners came
and sat with Jesus and his disciples.
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples,
"Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"
He heard this and said,
"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
Go and learn the meaning of the words,
'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."

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The Word of the Lord
- Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ


*

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God

A Responsorial Psalm (Ps 50)

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

The LORD, the God of gods, has spoken and summoned the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
From Zion God shines forth, perfect in beauty.

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

Our God comes and will not be silent!
Devouring fire precedes, storming fiercely round about.
God summons the heavens above and the earth to the judgment of his people:

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

"Gather my faithful ones before me,
those who made a covenant with me by sacrifice."
The heavens proclaim divine justice, for God alone is the judge. Selah.

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

"Listen, my people, I will speak;
Israel, I will testify against you; God, your God, am I.
Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you, nor for your holocausts, set before me daily.

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

I need no bullock from your house, no goats from your fold.
For every animal of the forest is mine, beasts by the thousands on my mountains.
I know every bird of the heavens; the creatures of the field belong to me.

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

Were I hungry, I would not tell you, for mine is the world and all that fills it.
Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?
Offer praise as your sacrifice to God; fulfill your vows to the Most High.

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

Then call on me in time of distress; I will rescue you, and you shall honor me."
But to the wicked God says: "Why do you recite my commandments and profess my covenant with your lips?
You hate discipline; you cast my words behind you!

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

When you see thieves, you befriend them; with adulterers you throw in your lot.
You give your mouth free rein for evil; you harness your tongue to deceit.
You sit maligning your own kin, slandering the child of your own mother.

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

When you do these things should I be silent? Or do you think that I am like you? I accuse you, I lay the charge before you.
"Understand this, you who forget God, lest I attack you with no one to rescue.
Those who offer praise as a sacrifice honor me; to the obedient I will show the salvation of God."

Offer praise as your sacrifice to God.

Saint Gemma

Receive a free holy card, visit this beautiful web site dedicated to the Virgin of Lucca, Saint Gemma. www.stgemma.com

Read about this 19th century saint in her official and authoritative biography written by her spiritual director, Venerable Fr. Germanus, C.P., "The Life of St. Gemma Galgani". An excerpt follows:

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THE LIFE OF ST. GEMMA GALGANI
by Fr. Germanus of St. Stanislaus, Passionist
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Chapter 20
Assistance of St. Gemma's Guardian Angel.
A Great Help to her Sanctification.
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One of the most consoling dogmas of the Holy Faith is that of the assistance of the Angels.

After the fall, man had need in his misery and weakness of being especially helped and protected, in order to attain the end for which he was created. And God in His Love, wishing to give him assistance, deputed for this purpose the ministering spirits of His heavenly court. He accordingly assigned one of these holy spirits, rightly called "our good Angels," to each one of us. They take us by the hand on our first entrance into life and never leave us while life lasts. "Behold," says the Lord, "I will send My Angel, who will go before thee, and guard thee in thy way, and introduce thee into the land that I have prepared for thee."
. . .
She, [Gemma], was well prepared to treat with Angels by her many striking virtues: They were innocence, purity, candor, child-like simplicity and, at the same time, a most lively faith that enabled her to see, as it were without veil, the sublimest heavenly truths. Her holy Guardian must have found in his consoling charge something partaking of the angelic nature, which enabled him to carry on a familiar relationship with her.

What assuredly will be thought most singular in this angelic communication is what I may call the sensitive as well as the constant presence of the Angel. Gemma saw him with her eyes, touched him with her hand as if he were a being of this world, remained talking with him as one friend would with another. "Jesus," she said, "has not left me alone; He makes my Guardian Angel stay with me always." She thanked God most earnestly for this benefit and also declared her deep gratitude to the Angel. "If I am sometimes culpable, dear Angel," she said to him, "don't be angry with me, I wish to be grateful to thee." And the Angel to her: "Yes, I shall be thy guide and inseparable companion. Dost thou not know who it is that gave me charge of thee? It is the merciful Jesus." At this the angelic girl, unable to restrain her emotion, stood rapt in ecstasy with her Angel. What happened then is told by Gemma herself in the following simple words: "We both remained with Jesus. Oh, Father, if you also had been there!" And for her to remain with Jesus meant being engulfed mind and heart in the immense abyss of God's Divinity, there to behold and hear and learn secret things.

As a rule during those intimate meetings, a considerable time was spent in praying together and offering praise to the Most High. . . . Now as Gemma all day and during a great part of the night was intent on prayer, and that with great ardor of faith and extraordinary devotion, must not the Angel of the Lord have greatly rejoiced thereat? He let her see him sometimes raised in the air with outspread wings, and his hands extended over her or else joined in attitude of prayer. At other times he knelt beside her. . . . When it was the time of meditation, the Angel inspired her with sublimest ideas and moved her affections so that the result of the holy exercise might be perfect. And as the subject of these meditations was, for the most part, the Passion of Our Lord, the Angel, like a good master, laid open its profound mysteries to her soul. "Look," he would exclaim, "at what Jesus has suffered for men. Consider one by one these Wounds. It is Love that has opened them all. See how execrable sin is, since to expiate it, so much pain and so much love have been necessary." These and other such exquisite reflections, like rays of light and fire, went straight to the heart of the fervent child.

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today's lesson

Thursday, May 19, 2005
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Reading this on the bus on the way to Mass:

BALTIMORE CATECHISM No.3 (1885 ed.)
--Lesson Second: On God and His Perfections--

Q. 176. Is God just, holy, and merciful?
A. God is all just, all holy, all merciful, as He is infinitely perfect.

Q. 177. Why must God be "just" as well as "merciful"?
A. God must be just as well as merciful because He must fulfill His promise to punish those who merit punishment, and because He cannot be infinite in one perfection without being infinite in all.

Q. 178. Into what sins will the forgetfulness of God´s justice lead us?
A. The forgetfulness of God´s justice will lead us into sins of presumption.

Q 179. Into what sins will the forgetfulness of God´s mercy lead us?
A. The forgetfulness of God´s mercy will lead us into sins of despair.

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Liturgical Year A, Cycle I
Thursday of the Seventh week in Ordinary Time
Readings for Mass
First Reading: Sirach 5:1-8
Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 1:1-2, 3-4, 6
Gospel: Mark 9:41-50

First Reading: Sirach 5:1-8

Rely not on your wealth; say not: "I have the power."
Rely not on your strength in following the desires of your heart.
Say not: "Who can prevail against me?" for the LORD will exact the punishment.
Say not: "I have sinned, yet what has befallen me?" for the LORD bides his time.
Of forgiveness be not overconfident, adding sin upon sin.
Say not: "Great is his mercy; my many sins he will forgive."
For mercy and anger alike are with him; upon the wicked alights his wrath.
Delay not your conversion to the LORD, put it not off from day to day;


Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 1:1-2, 3-4, 6

Happy those who do not follow the counsel of the wicked, Nor go the way of sinners, nor sit in company with scoffers.
Rather, the law of the LORD is their joy; God's law they study day and night.
They are like a tree planted near streams of water, that yields its fruit in season; Its leaves never wither; whatever they do prospers.
But not the wicked! They are like chaff driven by the wind.
The LORD watches over the way of the just, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin.


Gospel: Mark 9:41-50

Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ, amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward. "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe (in me) to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, 1 into the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life crippled than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna, where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'

"Everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if salt becomes insipid, with what will you restore its flavor? Keep salt in yourselves and you will have peace with one another."

(Fr. John's homily: referring to the Baltimore Catechism he reflects on the sin of presumption and despair, but especially presumption as it relates to the first reading.)

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The failed papacy of St. Celestine V